It is desirable to measure the depth of field of an eye optical system. Such measurements can be used by lens designers to understand performance of an eye optical system or by ophthalmic patients (or potential patients) to understand performance of a lens or refractive procedure. Patients and potential patients interested in eye optical systems that provide presbyopic solutions are particularly interested in the depth of field that can be regained by a given lens or procedure, such as depth of field gains generated by using a presbyopic solution such as a multifocal lens. Eye care practitioners may measure a patient's base-line depth of focus (i.e., prior to implementation of a presbyopic solution) for comparison to the depth of field that is attained after implementation of the presbyopic solution to understand the improvement provided by the presbyopic solution.
Conventional techniques for measuring depth of field have included scanning a target within the object space of the lens while images of the object are observed. Such measurement techniques have had shortcomings due to amount of the practitioner's and wearer's time that is consumed to perform a measurement, and also because the characteristics of the eye optical system may change over the time span during which the measurement is made (e.g., tear film may evaporate or otherwise change, the degree of accommodation may change) thereby yielding less accurate results.